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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Saeviomagy" data-source="post: 4944869" data-attributes="member: 5890">I think that the key to avoiding grindy boss fights is to watch for reasons why players and monsters might be repeating the same action over multiple rounds.Typically those reasons are either that the individual has no more encounter/daily powers OR that a tactic is working just fine and only requires at-will powers.The solution is to make sure that these things don't happen.For the first (running out of dailies and encounter powers), you need to give people things to do that are more effective than firing off all their dailies followed by all their encounter powers.One of the ways to achieve that is by having terrain that gives a bigger benefit from using an at will than using a daily or encounter power will. Bullrushing a foe into the lava, grabbing them to keep them there, attacking terrain features to collapse them on top of foes and making skill checks to get something to go are all good examples.Another way is to simply make sure that there is always some sort of condition that can occur which will make a daily or encounter power MORE valuable when the condition happens. Keep this up as a theme, and try to telegraph it.For example: sure blasting the shapeshifting mithril golem with a fireball is a great idea, but wouldn't it be better to do it AFTER knocking over that vat of liquid nitrogen onto him? If the bad guy is helpless until the beginning of his next turn after whomping out his uber-attack, isn't it better to save brute strike for then? etc etc.The second one is where we might consider "phases". If the dragon is going toe-to-toe with the party, and they've settled into a routine of "everyone hit the dragon with your biggest damaging at-will" and it's working for them, then the fight will be routine and boring. The dragon needs to mix it up. Taking wing would seem like like the obvious course to take, but unfortunately that means that most characters will be reduced to basic ranged attacks, which sucks. So if the dragon is going to take wing, something needs to be added to the encounter to make ordinary, boring ranged attacks a sub-par path to take. That could be one of two things: either the players get given something else to do (something to climb and leap upon the dragon from? Some terrain feature that can force the dragon to ground?) OR the dragon needs to mix up what the players need to do to survive (melt the platforms that the players are standing on with breath attacks! collapse parts of the ceiling! inhale for a mega breath that the players must take shelter from!).All are very wow-like boss effects.The important thing that you MUST remember if you do this is that the course of action must NOT be totally damning. WOW boss tactics typically TPK the raid if the raid doesn't understand what to do. You can't afford to do that with a D&D party: they can't just run it back. Courses of action should be relatively obvious (because the party will only get one shot at the encounter), and penalties for failure should be forgiving (at least the first couple of times).</blockquote>

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